The differing success stories of Alexander Isak and Nick Woltemade has been one of the stories of the Premier League season so far.

Our top scorer last season has yet to really find his scoring boots since forcing a move to Anfield, with just a single goal in the Carabao Cup against Championship side Southampton to his name as he battles fitness concerns and risks being eclipsed by Hugo Ekitike.

Woltemade however has started very well under Eddie Howe, with four goals across all competitions. He’s certainly silenced his doubters over whether the young striker could adapt to the Premier League after his £69m move from Stuttgart.

With every passing week, it looks like we may have sold Isak at the right time, and one former player has speculated that we knew exactly what we were doing with how we handled the Isak saga over the summer…

Hendrick shares Isak theory

Former Mag Jeff Hendrick believes Newcastle may have delayed Alexander Isak’s move to Liverpool to not only secure replacements of our own, but ensure he didn’t hit the ground running after his own selfish tactics over the summer.

The Swede was notably absent from our pre-season tour of Asia, and trained alone when the squad returned. Because of that, it has taken some time for Liverpool to get him back to full fitness, which you could argue has cost them at times this campaign.

“I think it (his sale) was always going to happen, even a month out,” said Hendrick. “It was inevitable, there couldn’t be a U-turn. The fans weren’t happy. Then it was more Newcastle dragging it out, waiting to line up the player they wanted.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a little bit of tactics involved: ‘Let’s send him to Liverpool not fit. He won’t have had a proper pre-season. They’re going to have to get him fit. They’ve got a backlog of games.’ Because if you look at it, he’s obviously played a couple of games, but he’s not an Alexander Isak of £120million. So it’s probably clever from them.”

It was constantly reiterated that we wouldn’t be selling Isak at all this summer if at least two different forwards came in to replace him, so it would have been an interesting turn of events if neither Woltemade, Wissa, or any alternative strikers were signed and Isak had to mend his bridges, getting back to full fitness for Eddie Howe and not Arne Slot.

Still, this doesn’t make much sense from Hendrick, as it was Isak’s decision to pull out of pre-season and sulk in a bid to force a move, meaning his lack of match fitness on arrival at Anfield was all his own doing, not on us.

Rusty Isak now costing his country

And it’s more than just Liverpool that Isak’s actions have impacted, as Sweden find themselves on the brink of missing out on the 2026 World Cup thanks Isak and Viktor Gyokeres misfiring in front of goals.

With just one point from their opening three games, Sweden were soundly beaten by Switzerland just a few nights ago to leave them rock bottom of Group B.

If they fail to beat Kosovo on Monday night, and Switzerland win against Slovenia, then Sweden can only hope of qualifying through the play-offs.

And considering they will have to travel to Geneva and beat the Swiss to stand the best chance of finishing second, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to Isak questioned over his performances and how his lack of fitness and availability may ultimately cost his country when they needed him the most.